Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre

<title>Abstract</title> Class imbalance remains a critical challenge in machine learning, particularly in high stakes domains such as fraud detection and medical diagnosis, where minority class instances carry greater significance. Traditional classifiers often exhibit biased performance toward the majority class, leading to suboptimal detection of rare but important events. To address this challenge, this paper proposes an Enhanced Genetic Algorithm based Data Balancer (EGADB) that optimally resamples imbalanced datasets prior to classification. The proposed technique leverages genetic optimization principles to generate a balanced training set while preserving the intrinsic data distribution. The effectiveness of EGADB is evaluated using multiple base learners including Logistic Regression, Naive Bayes, and Bagging, as well as a developed voter based ensemble model. Experiments are conducted on the Credit Card Fraud Detection dataset and a breast cancer dataset, comparing classifier performance on unbalanced data and data balanced using EGADB. Performance is assessed using accuracy, precision, recall, F1 score, optimized precision, Matthews correlation coefficient, and balanced accuracy score. Experimental results demonstrate that EGADB significantly enhances minority class recognition and overall classification robustness across all evaluated models. The developed EGADB voter ensemble consistently achieves superior performance, attaining near perfect detection metrics on balanced datasets while maintaining stability across evaluation measures. These findings confirm that EGADB provides an effective and scalable solution for mitigating class imbalance and improving ensemble based predictive performance in imbalanced learning environments.

ABSTRACT The recruitment and use of children by armed groups continue to threaten the effective protection of children. Preventive approaches to child protection, call for robust early warning mechanisms that do not only focus on the recruitment and use of children, but capture the root causes and vulnerabilities of both boys and girls for recruitment. A comprehensive early warning mechanism for prevention requires a gender-sensitive approach. This paper seeks to examine the gender dynamics of the recruitment and use of children by armed groups, and how that can inform a gender sensitive data collection and analysis to improve early warning.

Growing international concern over Russia’s military and political resurgence in Africa and the possibility of creating a renewed Cold War has been rekindled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of war in Europe in February 2022. Russia’s growing influence in Africa through the re-establishment of old ties and the creation of new ones has been perceived as a quest to re-establish the geopolitical gains that the Soviet Union achieved before its collapse in 1989. Increasing demand for Russian weaponry and equipment, support for unpopular, illegitimate, or unconstitutionally elected leaders, and the targeting and interest in mining concessions and natural resources are considered by the West to be a threat to democratic gains and stability in an already fragile continent. Several questions arise as a result of the deepfake propaganda around occurrences on the continent. How has Russia’s resurgence or reemergence manifested on the African continent? What instruments does Russia utilise to exert its influence in Africa? What are the potential opportunities and threats of Russian presence in West Africa and the Sahel? And how will other global actors be affected? This debate article seeks to examine a particular aspect of Russia’s resurgence on the African continent, namely, the presence of Russian proxies in West Africa and the Sahel. It examines the multiple dynamics created by their presence, the potential threats that their proliferation and activities generate in an already fragile sub-region, and how such activities, if unconstrained, can impose other potential dangers on the continent and the globe.

From all indications ranging from literature, observations and experience, the university system is faced with multifaceted challenges. Among these challenges are organisational conflict, student unrest, unethical politicking, and attrition rate. This problem has negatively affected university productivity and calls for attention. This study proposed the transformational leadership approach as an alternative to the university management process for effective productivity to answer the question: how can transformational leadership theory be presented as an alternative to effective management of the university system? This argument is located within the interpretive paradigm to guide the argumentative interpretation of the theory toward providing solutions to the challenges. The study presented transformational leadership theory and adopted conceptual analysis to interpret the approach and its assumptions and how they could affect the operating system of universities. The study concluded that the transformational leadership approach, through its assumptions (inspirational motivation, exemplification of moral standards and unity of purpose), is the best managerial approach to ensure unhindered university operations towards productivity. Hence, the study suggests that inspirational motivation, exemplification of moral standards and unity of purpose should be made a fundamental practice among the leaderships of various university departments.

As the discussions and debates rage on about the content and direction of social work in Africa, the challenges associated with weaning the profession off its Western and North American roots become apparent. The desire to indigenise or make the profession culturally relevant is well articulated in the literature. Some efforts have been undertaken toward achieving this desire. However, it is evident that despite the numerous discussions and publications, it appears that efforts at indigenising, localising, or making social work culturally relevant have not made much progress. While what must be achieved is somewhat clear; how to achieve it and by what process remain a conundrum. The article, therefore, revisits the issue of making social work culturally relevant in Africa and its associated challenges. Despite the indictment of current social work education and practice in Africa, it appears that many academics and professionals have accepted that what is Western is global, fashionable, and functional, if not perfect. Given this, perhaps, “we should not worry our heads” about changing it. Instead, social work educators and practitioners in Africa should go back to the drawing board to determine how current social work education and practice can be blended with a traditional African knowledge base, approaches and models to reflect and align with the critical principles and ideals within the African context. This is with the hope of making the profession more relevant to the needs of the people of Africa.

Abstract Much of the violent and protracted conflicts characteristic of sub-Saharan Africa in the post-Cold War years occurred in West Africa,1 particularly in countries of the Mano River Union (MRU).2 Apart from the fourteen years of intermittent conflict in Liberia, the West African sub-region also witnessed civil war in Sierra Leone; instabilities in Guinea-Bissau, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger and protracted rebellions in the Southern Cassamance Province of Senegal; resource-related conflicts in Nigeria, ethnic conflicts among the Nanumba and Konkomba in northern Ghana; and political instability in Togo.KeywordsUnited NationsArmed ConflictSecurity ThreatChild SoldierWest African CountryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This article focuses on Ghana's security culture as reflected in its foreign policy, and how it has influenced the way the country addresses transnational security challenges in the Economic Community of West African State subregion. In this sense, the article explores some of the linkages between national and subregional security cultures in West Africa and how effectively they have complemented each other in providing a holistic response to the transnational security challenges facing Ghana. The article argues that despite the existence of different subregional conventions and protocols made possible by an emerging subregional security culture, Ghana's strategies for addressing transnational security threats have not gone much beyond the rhetoric of addressing the problems. In reality, transnational criminal activities have not only intensified but have become more challenging. Several factors contribute to this including corrupt leadership and institutional practices, security lapses and lack of interagency coordination, and inadequate resources for addressing the problem. The article calls for adequately equipping the law enforcement agencies and the implementation of relevant laws to facilitate effective responses to transnational security challenges for Ghana and other countries in West Africa.